Your Housing Questions Answered: Down Payments, Mortgage Recasting, and Buying in Tough Markets
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Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. So, Elizabeth, I've noticed that you've been stepping up your summer wardrobe game recently. Oh, you noticed. Why, thank you, Sean. I have to give Quince credit for that. Quince has become my summer MVP. Same here. I've been practically living in all of their silk. I've entered my silk era. Got a silk tank top, silk shorts, a silk cotton blend shirt. It is the best.

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Go to quince.com slash smart money for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash smart money. Quince.com slash smart money. Sean, we've talked about this before, and I'm sure you may be sick of hearing me say it, but I am, for now, a lifetime renter, and I love renting because I get to just call my landlord up.

But now you are renting out your house, and I want to hear how it's going. Yeah, I am the landlord now, but fortunately I'm working with a property management company. I just received my first payment for rent, and after all of the home repairs and paying my property management company, I netted a whopping $312.74. You know what? I'm not even going to knock that $374. And what was it, 17 cents? $312.74. I got that.

But anyway, I'm not going to knock that because it's passive income. No, you didn't have to do any hard work for that money. And it's just the beginning. Next month, I'll have even more. Luckily, on this episode, we're having a housing lightning round where we answer a bunch of listeners' questions about housing. Let's get to it. ♪

Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles. And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. On this episode of the show, we're taking on a number of your questions about home buying in a lightning round. But first, we're going to talk about what the data shows us about how women are managing their finances compared to men.

Spoiler alert, as a society, we haven't really cracked the code on fixing the gaps between genders. So joining us today to talk about how women can create their own independent financial lives are personal finance nerds and members of our international community, nerd women, Amy Knight and Sarah Rathner. Welcome, guys. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Amy, you have an accent compared to we Americans. Where are you joining us from? Just so everyone knows. I do. I am coming from sunny Buckinghamshire and I'm about 60 miles north of London in a nice patch of countryside. And fun fact for listeners, when I was in London recently, Amy and I got together for coffee and it was delightful.

Indeed it was. So let's jump into the topic of today. Obviously, a lot has changed for women over the past 50 years or so when it comes to being able to manage their own finances. Now, there's been so much social change. Women have demanded greater levels of equality for decades. And I would say nowadays, children often see moms with at least some financial independence as a norm. So many grow up expecting that dynamic in their own partnerships. It's true. Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm the one without the delightful accent. Yeah.

There have been systemic changes over the past few decades, at least in the U.S., and Amy will talk a little bit about the U.K., that have made this possible for women. And I want to take a moment to point those out because it's really important for change to happen, not just at an individual or household level alone,

But also at a societal and legal level, at a national level, because it is not enough to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I don't care what people tell you. The law has to change to make this sort of change widespread. And there are a couple of instances I wanted to point out. I write about credit cards, and there are a few law changes that affect credit.

My area of expertise and the big one in the U.S. was the Equal Credit Opportunity Act that passed in 1974. So many of us elder millennials, maybe Gen Xers, might have had moms and grandmas who could not access credit cards in their own names without a male co-signer like your husband, your father before 1974. And then after that point, they were able to apply for credit in their own names because it became illegal for lenders to discriminate against things like credit.

gender and marital status in addition to other factors like race, color, national origin. And so that's a huge thing for women to be able to access credit by themselves. Think about how much you take for granted just applying for a credit card on your phone. It takes like three minutes and you don't need a man. Right.

And that happened in 1974, which is not that long ago. 51 years ago. It's unthinkable now for Gen Z women and Gen Alpha, my kids and their peers. They just think it's ridiculous that a girl couldn't do something that a boy could. And the same applies to finances. And similarly to what Sarah explained, a key milestone here in the UK was in 1975, the Sex Discrimination Act.

made it possible for women to take out mortgages, get a credit card, open a bank account without having their husband or father be that guarantor. And yeah, it's just mind-blowing to think it's really not that long ago.

So we talk about these changes not happening that long ago, but I wanted to point out something that happened much more recently, which was in a 2013 amendment to the CARD Act. And the CARD Act came about in the wake of the Great Recession. That's the reason why credit card issuers can't advertise their products on college campuses anymore. But it also, this amendment a few years later, made it possible for non-working spouses and partners to use their working spouse's or partner's income in their credit card application.

which allowed them to get credit cards in their own name, but using the household income to do that. And so it created this additional sense of independence because oftentimes people who are non-working spouses or partners, they rely so heavily on the working spouse system

for financial support that it might seem like, well, I can't have anything in my own name because I'm not the one who's working for income. Yes, you can and you should. And then if people don't have cards in their names, they would have a thin or non-existent credit profile. And if the partnership splits up, then you would be in pretty tough shape if you were to go out and try to get credit on your own. So in this way, it does allow spouses to actually build up their credit history, even if they aren't bringing in money on their own.

All right, so going from accomplishments of the past to today,

In the U.S., women have had greater access to financial products for decades now. And it's been so long that entire generations have never known it to be any other way. So I assume that's it. Problem solved and women have attained equality. Absolutely not. Yeah. Obviously kidding. That was the case. Yeah, not even close. I'm going to throw a little bit more UK data at you, if that's okay, just to illustrate that there is still a gap.

It's estimated that about 78% of companies here are still paying men more for the same work, even though it is illegal to pay based on different protected characteristics that Sarah mentioned earlier.

And a lot of the data that I write about and speak about comes from the Office for National Statistics. So if you ever see ONS in relation to UK stats, that's what that stands for. And they have found some data that women on average retire with 33% less in their pension pot.

And that makes sense when you think about the gender pay gap and how much less women are able to put into their retirement savings because they typically are the ones that take time out of the work, not only to care for children, but also other caring responsibilities. We've all got aging people in our lives that need looking after that often falls to women.

Nerd Wallet UK have done some research of our own, and we've also found there's a gap in understanding of financial terms. So huge amounts of progress has been made, yet there is still a lack of confidence among women in digesting some of the financial jargon out there.

But one little positive bit of data. In the UK, NerdWallet, we're focused a lot on small business right now and on side hustles. And loads of women are side hustling. And this can be a great way to build greater financial independence. So around a fifth of all side hustles here in Britain are from working mums.

Yeah. And on the U.S. side, NerdWallet did a study. It was a poll conducted with the Harris Poll, and we found that men are more likely than women to say they're financially better off than their parents, their salary increased over the past year, and they make more money than their spouse or partner if both are employed. So we're seeing much the same thing here in the U.S. as well. Well, ladies, I'm very curious about what is causing the gap. So can you share? Tell us.

Big thing is caregiving. Amy mentioned that earlier. Yeah, unpaid caregiving is still largely women's responsibilities. And that's something that prevents many women from being financially independent because it prevents them from working for income. Even women who have very successful careers, they've got a good income and they're standing on their own two feet financially, when they get hit with what's termed the motherhood penalty, it's

It's a real setback financially, or it can be. It takes the power away and it makes them dependent on their partner financially again. So it's really difficult, given that men cannot yet give birth, to close that gap. But there are things that we can do as a society within our relationships.

Well, I'm curious as well. I'm talking to all three of you brilliant ladies. You're all mothers. Have you experienced this or how have you grappled with any of these challenges related to the motherhood penalty or pressures to maybe step away from work that we're talking about? I'm happy to go first. There's been a phase in my life when I had two little children and no partner. And side hustling was my route back to feeling financially strong and resilient. And I

I was working at one point Monday to Friday, and then I had two side hustle businesses that I did when my children were asleep, one of which was an Etsy shop. And that's obviously nice and flexible. You can fit that around your kids.

And then I would do shifts in my friend's cafe on a Sunday as well because I was so determined that I was going to make the numbers add up on my own. And so I do think that is becoming normalized that children see mums juggling multiple income streams.

My experience is very similar to yours, Amy. So I have been a single mom for, I think, five years now. And I have had to juggle all of the jobs. It is a norm, I think, for kids to see their moms working now. And also, as we said, to expect that from partnerships. So my son sees me working all the time. Sometimes he tells me I'm working too much. So I feel like a side effect of that has also been me trying to find a balance because I don't want him to only know a mom that's working all the time. I want him to also see me resting more.

But yeah, I've had to juggle many side hustles just to kind of make sure that I have enough income to take care of him. I would say, first of all, my husband and I waited a very long time to have a child. I was 39 when I had my first and currently only child.

And that allowed us to do what I call building our empire a lot more. I think we had more time as working adults without children to save as aggressively as we could. And we also, once we were expecting our son, saved up for daycare months before we would have to put him in it. So we already had a savings account set aside for childcare, which we knew we would need.

I don't advocate for everybody waiting a really, really, really long time to have children. We had to go through fertility treatments to have them, which was very expensive. But I definitely see more and more women choosing to wait longer or waiting longer out of necessity. They haven't found a partner to have a child with yet or they want to focus on other things first before having children because it does change your life on such a fundamental level.

Each of your experiences speaks to compromises that mothers have to make in their careers as mothers raising kids. I'd like to hear some other tips that you guys may have around how women can create financial independence, whether they're mothers or not. And this is for people who are single or maybe in a relationship. It's the whole spectrum.

I think my favorite tip at the moment, which applies to everybody, all genders, all ages, is that you don't have to do the scary money stuff all by yourself. And I love this concept of going on money dates. So this would apply really nicely if you are in a relationship, but equally you can do it with a friend. So I...

go with my partner to our favorite cafe and we get a nice piece of cake and we sit with our laptop and we go through our expenses for the month. We talk about our big savings goals and that gives us the opportunity to have those conversations that expose some spending that maybe we could cut out or highlight, oh, this bill's gone up. What do we need to do about that? And

And if you're somebody that knows you want to get a grip on your finances, but it just feels so incredibly dull and boring, pairing up with somebody, so calling for backup from a mate,

That can give you the motivation to push through the boredom barrier, but you're there for each other and you say, okay, what is it that you need to tackle? I am here for you. How can I encourage you to sort this out? Yeah, this is something I've done over the years with a very dear friend of mine from college. We've known each other now for 21 years. And in our early 20s, back when we were both single, living in different cities, we both set up high-yield savings accounts for the first time.

And we would occasionally just kind of say, oh, yeah, I'm going to put $50 a month into it or $25 a month into it. You know, I just got a raise. I'm going to put $75 a month into it. Oh, I've saved my first $1,000. And we would sort of once in a while just bring up the milestones that we'd hit with these accounts. And so whether you're single or partnered, finding that friend or family member that you can talk to openly about money can be really priceless. Yeah.

And I would say if it's accessible to you, investing has been a game changer for me. I worried a lot about the future and even just beyond because I do have to make a lot of sacrifices because we have a single income household and wanting to give my son as many opportunities as I can. I worried about when I'll be able to retire and how much I'll be able to have during retirement. But I think investing has been

put a lot of those worries to rest because I know that my money is compounding somewhere, automating those investments so that no matter what's happening financially and having an emergency fund, I can continue to invest and prepare for my future. So hopefully I don't have to burden him in the future with having to financially care for me because I haven't saved enough. All right. Well, Amy, Sarah, thank you so much for coming on and giving us an update and

reminding us about all the progress that women have made and how far we still have to go. Thank you so much. It's been great. Thank you. We're about to get to this episode's money question segment. And what we're going to do here is answer a number of your questions about home buying.

But first, listeners, you know the drill. Send us your money questions. It's our job to answer them. Whether you have a question about how to save as a mother or you want to know whether it's a good time to invest with everything happening in the economy, whatever your money question, we nerds are here to help you. So leave us a voicemail or text us on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. Again, that's 901-730-NERD.

Or you can email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com. All righty, let's get to this episode's money question. That's up next. Stay with us.

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On this episode, we're doing a lightning round. Don't all say yay at once.

But we have had an inflective housing question, so we decided to answer multiple in one go. And to help us answer all of these listener questions on this episode of Smart Money, we have fellow nerd and seasoned housing expert Holden Lewis. Holden, welcome back to Smart Money. Hey, hey, hey. Great to be here. Let's get to the first question, which comes from a listener's voicemail. Here it is. Hello. I'm curious if it is better to pay

save more money for the down payment on a new house, or if it's better to pay off the current mortgage that you have so you have as much equity in the home as possible when you go to sell it. For reference, my husband and I have a 15-year mortgage on our current home, and we owe a little under $100,000.

And we are looking to buy something probably in the $400,000 to $500,000 range. I just don't know if it's better to try and pay off the house or save as much money as possible for the down payment. So thanks for the help. You guys are awesome. And I hope to hear from you soon. Bye.

Okay, Holden, what are your thoughts on this potential strategy? There's at least two ways to approach this decision. One is to squeeze every ounce of financial value, and another is just to give yourself some flexibility.

When you're extracting as much financial value as possible, you look at the differing returns you get from paying off the loan versus putting the money into savings. So when you pay more than your minimum payment on your mortgage, you're effectively earning the same return on the money as your interest rate. So here's why. Because you're paying that money now instead of paying interest on it later. You borrow $100 at a 5% interest rate.

If you pay that money back the day you borrow it, you're paying $0 interest. But if you pay it a year from now, you're paying $5 interest. And so you can see where if you pay it now, you're making essentially a 5% return on that money. Okay, so when you take that as a given, your next question is whether you could save that money somewhere and get a higher return than your mortgage's interest rate. And in that case, you will come out ahead by saving the money

instead of paying extra on your mortgage. I would also encourage this listener to think about other areas of their financial life besides their home equity. Like, what is their emergency fund like? Do they have any high-interest credit card debt? What else could they use this money for besides putting it all toward the down payment? That's exactly right. I mean, boy, especially high-interest rate credit card debt. Pay that off.

long before you pay off that mortgage early. Let's look at an example. Let's say you refinanced into that 15-year mortgage in 2020 or 2021. The interest rate was just 2.5%. In that case, you might just consider stashing the money in a high-yield savings account that pays more than 2.5%. Now, what if the interest rate is higher than you could earn on a savings account? Then, yeah, technically, you would come out ahead of paying off the loan early. But

That does bring up the concept of financial flexibility. When you pay down the mortgage, you're locking that money into home equity. If you end up needing to tap your equity, you'll have to get a home equity loan or a line of credit. Then you'll have to pay interest on it. And by contrast, having that money in savings makes it easier to get out.

And you earn interest on it before you spend it. And I'm thinking, Holden, that since the listener was talking about having equity when selling the house, it's also important to have cash on hand when you want to sell your home too, right? That is exactly right. Take it from someone who is selling a house right now. Yeah, it's really important to have the flexibility of just having that easy access to the money because selling a house indeed is expensive.

you end up paying to fix up things here and there, and they really add up. And you'd prefer to pay for those repairs in cash instead of a credit card or borrowing from a home equity line of credit. Having a lot of cash in a savings account looks attractive to lenders and home sellers.

And by the way, if folks need help doing the math, NerdWallet has a free mortgage calculator that you can use to estimate your monthly mortgage payments. You can plug in your down payment and interest rate to get a better idea of what might work for you. And we will link to that in today's episode description. All right. Let's lightning bolt to the next question, guys. Can you see what I did there? Clap for me. This question comes from a listener via text.

Hello, nerds. We own an extra house that has sat mostly empty for the last two years. We're considering renting it out and are looking into traveling professionals in particular. This allows us to leave the house furnished while also offering increased flexibility and potentially charge a higher rent.

My husband is extremely interested in putting the house into a trust before we start making any rental income. I know nothing about the why or how of going through the trust process. Can you illuminate me on advantages or disadvantages to putting a rental property into a trust and what protections or tax advantages it offers?

All right, Holden, let's get straight to the meat of it. Should rental properties go into a trust? And can you lay out what benefits this route might provide versus just owning the property outright as they had or having it owned by something like an LLC? When I heard this question, I called Claudia Cabrero, a lawyer in Miami who practices in real estate law.

probate and estate law, and family law. So a really good person to talk to about this. And after talking with her, I think this listener is on the right track.

Claudia told me that having an investment property in your personal name is the worst thing you can do, which is probably what this family does, right? She said the next best thing to do is to put the property in an LLC or corporation. And she said, quote, the best thing would be putting it into a trust. Did Claudia say why putting the property into a trust is the best option, Holden? She

She did, and here's why. A trust is a method not only of asset protection, but also of estate planning. Depending on the state that the property is in, an investment property might not have a homestead exemption, and that means that the property could be exposed to creditors. Owning the house within a trust

could protect it from some claims from creditors. And you also have the option of owning the property in an LLC that is tied to a trust through an operating agreement, kind of like Matryoshka Dolls.

And that structure might provide even deeper asset protection from lawsuits. Now, you'll really want to consult an attorney eventually in the state where the property is. The lawyer can detail the pros and cons of a trust versus an LLC versus both together, including the tax implications. The tax issue can be really complex because it might vary based on the trust's structure. Let's get to the next question in the queue. This comes from a listener's text. Here it is.

Holden, we want to know what thoughts or tips do you have on buying homes in locations with tighter housing markets? And if so, what are some of the things that you've learned from this podcast?

And tighter means essentially that there's less inventory available for buyers. There are some markets like that. Like New York City is fairly tight. A lot of New England, New Hampshire, Connecticut, I hear about those, and then the upper Midwest. So this is a question that actually has bearing on big parts of the country. The first thing to do is to figure out whether to rent or buy. Because in the housing markets with the fewest homes for sale, it's just going to be easier to find a rental. But

Let's say you're just determined to buy a home in a place where people are competing over a scarce supply of houses for sale. You decided that owning a home is worth it, even when the local market is less than friendly. In this case, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the seller. So what do sellers want? They're looking for a good price, but that's not all. When sellers compare competing offers,

They want to sell to someone who is sure to close. They don't want to get two weeks from closing day and then suddenly, oh, it fell through. You have to start all over again. And they're looking for someone who's not going to ask the seller to make a lot of repairs or pay for extensive repairs.

And in some cases, sellers want the buyer to have flexibility about the closing date. I know during the COVID pandemic, when the seller's market craze was happening, cash buyers had the upper hand. So I want to know if that's still the case. Yes, sellers do favor cash buyers. And the reason is that cash buyers don't require approval from mortgage lenders. So there's not someone in the background who might say no at the last minute.

But okay, let's say you're a buyer and you will need a mortgage. You can increase your chance of success by getting a pre-approval from a lender. And you share that pre-approval letter with the seller. And you're probably also sharing information about your finances. Like here's how much money I have in savings. You know, here's how solid I am financially. So there's that. And now let's talk about that repair issue. You should have the property inspected, but you can reassure the seller that

You're not going to come back with a checklist of tenths of thousands of dollars worth of repairs that you want the seller to pay for. You can say that you're getting an inspection to find out how much you will have to shell out for repairs and upgrades, but that you plan to buy as is if the house is in good enough shape that you're still willing to go through with it. You can tell your real estate agent that you want to keep the right to withdraw your offer if the inspector finds problems that you don't want to tackle.

Now, the final thing is the flexibility. The seller might be buying another house and the closing date on that purchase might not be set in stone. If you have the flexibility to say to that seller, sure, I'm willing to adjust the closing date to accommodate you, it really could tip the scale in your favor. It's just one less thing that the seller has to worry about and the

Home sellers have a lot to worry about already. And the good thing is that this flexibility is easier for renters to offer because they're not scheduling the closing of their own sale of their own house. And I want to reiterate that when you're buying a house, think of what the seller wants. And when you're selling a house, consider what buyers want. What are the other side's wants and fears? And do your best to address those wants and fears.

I'm not going to lie to you. This sounds like a lot of work and it also sounds like why I'm still renting. Even if I did want to buy, it seems like an expensive time to buy Holden. Every now and again, I poke around on Zillow and I do notice it's cheaper to rent in many places.

That is absolutely right. In the 50 biggest housing markets in the country, it's cheaper to rent than to buy a starter home. That's according to research in the spring of last year from Realtor.com. I don't think things have gotten any better for homebuyers since then. Last but not least, we have one more listener question, and that came in via text. It's about recasting your mortgage.

It goes,

Okay, Holden, lay it out really clear for us. What is mortgage recasting? And is it a big secret like this listener seems to think? In a mortgage recast, the listener would do...

what their aunt did, make a big lump sum payment. Think of it as making a second down payment after you've owned the house for a while. After you make that payment, the lender recalculates your monthly payments based on the new lower principal amount. So it's the same loan, it's the same interest rate, but your payments are lower because you owe less.

And what are we talking here in terms of a lump sum payment? How big does it have to be? Do you have any examples that you can give us? It has to be really big. The lender usually requires a $10,000 or more payment, and sometimes it's a whole lot more. And that means that when you pay extra every month or every year, you're not going to be eligible for a recast. I mean, it has to be a really hefty chunk of change.

So the listener said that their aunt had a $400,000 mortgage and she cut her monthly payment to $400. Now, I don't know the interest rate, but let's say it was 5.5%. In that case, she could reduce her monthly payment to $400 in principal and interest by shrinking the principal to $70,000. So that would be a payment of up to $330,000. Just not something most of us have access to. No.

No. Or, I mean, again, what I think I mentioned earlier, what else could you do with that money? Putting $330,000 toward your loan balance doesn't seem like maybe the wisest long-term financial strategy. Right, because you could invest it in retirement or you could pay for renovations on the house. Personally, I would spend it on a nice vacation. You get a very nice vacation for that amount of money. If I was positive, I would dump it into retirement. Yeah.

So how common is mortgage recasting? Because again, the listener seems to think it's a secret. It kind of just seems like it's unattainable for many people and maybe not the wisest choice, even if it is attainable.

Yeah, it's definitely not exactly a secret. It's just not commonly done because people don't have that kind of money and they don't tend to put it into home equity if they don't have to. Well, then just to have the flip side of this, when do you think it might actually be a good idea? It might be a good idea if your income has gone way down.

And you're not going to be able to pay off the whole mortgage, but you've lost income. Maybe you've just retired and you just figure, oh, okay, well, I have five years left. If I cut the payments down from $3,000 to $400, I can just keep that mortgage while I'm retired and do it that way. Well, good food for thought for our listener now that we have this open secret on the podcast. Holden, thank you so much for coming on and answering these lightning questions with us.

You're so welcome. That is all we have for this episode. Remember, listener, that we are here to answer your money questions. So turn to the nerds and call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD. You can also email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com.

Join us next time to hear about a listener's question around managing money as a stay-at-home parent. Follow Smart Money on your favorite podcast app, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes.

And if you're listening to us on Spotify, leave us a comment right on the platform. And here goes our brief disclaimer. We are not your financial or investment advisors. This nerdy information is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes, and it just might not apply to your specific circumstances. This episode was produced by Tess Vigeland. Hilary Georgie helped with editing. Nick Karisamy mixed our audio. And of course, a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all of their incredible help.

And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.